Yearly Review: GSN

While GSN did several things that I didn’t care for, I find that they’ve pleased me much more as a cable network this year than SOAPnet.

Some positive items are definitely in the classic variety. Firstly, I’m glad that more rarely aired series have gotten dusted off and are being seen. Most late nights for an hour are two are very enjoyable for this night owl, including Super Password (1984-89 NBC), Double Dare (1976-77 CBS), Body Language (1984-86 CBS), Beat the Clock (1979-80 CBS) airing on late Sundays, and Trivia Trap (1984-85 ABC), Now You See It (1974-75 CBS) on late Tuesday-Saturdays.

We have had some well thought out marathons, especially the Viewer’s Choice Marathon last month. And marathons earlier this year on Saturday nights from 8-10 PM.

I give major praise for the tributes that aired this year on the network. Especially Merv Griffin’s in August. Considering GSN’s seemingly bum deal with the Sony owned shows, I was not only surprised and overjoyed that there would be a Wheel of Fortune marathon but that there would be so much variety, even including three NBC daytime shows. It was one of the best marathons I have ever seen on GSN; too bad the circumstances were they way the were. The Jeopardy! marathon wasn’t as good to me, still from the same 2001-02 season that has aired since 2005. However they did air the Million Dollar Masters tournament. So at least they picked the most significant episodes of the season to show. We also had the Kitty Carlisle, Charles Nelson Reilly, and Brett Somers tributes this year that were well done. It’s nice to see the celebrities remembered and to see them at their best.

And bravo to the GSN promotions department for starting to promoting the daytime schedule as well as nighttime later on in the year. To me it’s only fair to give every show or “block” on the schedule a fair shot when it comes to on-air promotions.

One negative definitely involves the now-defunct PlayMania. I still insist that changing over to 100 Winners/Quiznation with lackluster formatting was overall a bad idea and I’m not surprised that the show eventually would disappear on Halloween. Here’s a tip for the folks at GSN next time they have a hit on their hands: if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

Without Prejudice? was another letdown. This show could have been much better than what it was by tackling the societal issues like racism, homophobia, etc. but it was just another forum for people to shout at the top of their lungs and say offensive things just for the sake of doing it without anything else getting done. And of course GSN had to take the low road and promote only the outrageous stuff and not really for the message the show was trying to give. I think the show was obviously there to not teach us to judge folks by first impressions, but it was just executed badly. I wasn’t sorry to see this go.

As far as acquiring shows went this year -- I’m glad to see that GSN has the rights to air Let’s Make A Deal again. I could have done without Show Me The Money. All that promoting about how they were going to air ALL of the episodes including the two that ABC didn’t show only for it to bomb in the second night. What a waste. I hope this teaches them not to acquire anymore recent primetime bombs. As far as them getting the rights to Richard Karn’s Family Feud… I don’t really think it was worth it that much. I liked him more than Louie, but after seeing John O‘Hurley, I find Richard mediocre, and having Dawson and Combs on GSN to me is enough for one show. O’Hurley’s version of To Tell The Truth I am on the fence about -- I wouldn’t have picked it up, but it could have been worse. They could have gotten Card Sharks ‘01 or some other bomb from around that time, so if they were to pick up anything from the late ‘90s-early ‘00’s era, I’d rather it be this or 2002’s Beat the Clock. The rest I can do without.

I would definitely give GSN a solid “B” for the year. While there are things that I could have done without, especially Catminster (which obviously belonged on Animal Planet), I really appreciate them going all out for tributes this year, it only makes me wish that the marathons occurred under happier circumstances. I also am glad that they’re focusing more on actual game show formats again for original series (Grand Slam was another good one). And they’ve done a good job at pleasing the oldie fans in my book.

I’m already looking forward to next year. According to advanced Zap2it listings, Wheel of Fortune and Tic Tac Dough should be back early next month, and the hour-long black and white block is back to 7 days a week by January. With having over 700 episodes of the original What’s My Line? (1950-67 CBS), it only makes sense to air that more than once a week.

Here’s looking forward to another good year for GSN, and hopefully they’ll continue to stick to the good game show ideal.